Stock Market & Financial Investment News

Netflix's 'cloud guru' hired by Battery Ventures, Bloomberg reportsBattery Ventuers has hired Adrian Cockcroft as a "technology fellow," Bloomberg reports. Cockcroft has worked at eBay (EBAY) and was most recently a cloud architect at Netflix (NFLX). At Netflix, he oversaw much of the company’s move from running its own data centers to relying on Amazon.com’s (AMZN) cloud-computing infrastructure. Reference Link

PayPal initiated with an Underweight at Piper JaffrayPiper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster started shares of PayPal (PYPL) with an Underweight rating saying increased competition could pressure the stock's multiple over the next 6-24 months. Underweight is Piper's equivalent of a sell rating. Google's (GOOG) Android Pay and Apple's (AAPL) Apple Pay will give consumers a "real alternative to PayPal" for the first time, Munster tells investors in a research note. In addition, interest in payments from Amazon.com (AMZN) and Facebook (FB) bring potential for more digital wallet offerings, the analyst notes. Munster set a $30 price target for PayPal, which began trading yesterday following a spinoff from parent company eBay (EBAY). Shares of the online payment system closed Monday up $2.08 to $40.47.

Amazon plans $5B investment in India ahead of Prime launch, ET saysAmazon is preparing a total investment of $5B in India and plans to launch Amazon Prime and Amazon Instant Video in the country later this year, the Economic Times reported earlier, citing two people directly familiar with the matter. Reference Link

On The Fly: Top stock stories at middayStocks on Wall Street were slightly higher at midday in the first trading day of a week that will be light on domestic economic data but heavy on earnings reports. Investors will be receiving profit reports from about 25% of the companies on the S&P 500 this week, making this the highest volume earnings week of this season. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., no major data was released. In Europe, Greece reopened its banks three weeks after closing as the country worked out another bailout agreement. The country announced it has started the process of paying off its creditors, including the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, with a bridge loan it just received. COMPANY NEWS: Lockheed Martin (LMT) agreed to buy the Sikorsky Aircraft business from United Technologies (UTX) for $9B, noting the price is "effectively reduced" to $7.1B after taking into account tax benefits resulting from the transaction. Shares of Lockheed, which also reported better than expected second quarter results and increased its fiscal year guidance, gained nearly 2% after the Sikorsky announcement and saying it will conduct a strategic review of its government IT infrastructure services business and technical services business... Shares of Morgan Stanley (MS) shares were little changed near noon after the bank reported earnings and revenue, excluding certain adjustments, that topped analysts' consensus forecasts... SunEdison (SUNE) announced a deal to acquire Vivint Solar (VSLR) for approximately $2.2B, payable in a combination of cash, shares of SunEdison common stock and SunEdison convertible notes. In connection with the proposed acquisition of Vivint Solar, SunEdison has entered into a definitive purchase agreement with a subsidiary of TerraForm Power (TERP) which, concurrently with the completion of SunEdison's acquisition of Vivint, will acquire Vivint Solar's rooftop solar portfolio, consisting of 523 MW expected to be installed by year-end 2015, for $922M in cash. Shares of Vivint rose 44% following the announcement, while SunEdison's stock gained 4% and TerraForm dropped 3%. Fellow residential solar installer SolarCity (SCTY), which is backed by Tesla's (TSLA) Elon Musk, rose 7% following the deal in the space. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the notable gainers was Exelixis (EXEL), which rallied 43% after the company reported that a study of cabozantinib in metastatic renal cell carcinoma met its primary endpoint of significant improvement in progression-free survival. The shares were indicated to rise even more in early pre-market trading, but lost some of their gains after Bristol-Myers (BMY) announced that its Opdivo study was stopped early after showing superior overall survival in a Phase 3 study of previously treated patients with advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Bristol-Myers rose a bit less than 1% to trade near $70 per share after its own announcement. Also higher was PayPal (PYPL), which gained more than 5.5% in its first day of trading after being spun out of eBay (EBAY). Meanwhile, eBay shares rose over 2%. Cal-Maine Foods (CALM) dropped 8% after posting lower than expected sales and profits in its fourth quarter and warning that while it should have an adequate supply of its primary feed ingredients, the company expects that prices will be "volatile" in the year ahead. Also lower were shares of several gold miners, including Barrick Gold (ABX) and Newmont Mining (NEM), which each fell about 11%, as gold prices declined about 2% near midday. INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was up 31.66, or 0.18%, to 18,118.11, the Nasdaq was up 9.81, or 0.19%, to 5,219.96, and the S&P 500 was up 2.82, or 0.13%, to 2,129.46.

PayPal completes separation from eBay PayPal Holdings (PYPL) has completed its separation from eBay (EBAY) and is now an independent public company trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “PYPL.” PayPal is well-positioned to deliver the benefits of digital money to people around the world. In 2014, PayPal processed $235B in total payment volume and generated more than $8B in revenues. Also last year, PayPal processed $46B in mobile payment volume. The company serves more than 169M active customer accounts in 203 markets around the world. Under the terms of the separation, on July 17, 2015, stockholders who held eBay common stock at the close of business on July 8, 2015 received a distribution of one PayPal common share for every one share of eBay common stock held as of the Record Date. No fractional shares of PayPal were distributed.

Amazon.com upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at CowenCowen analyst John Blackledge upgraded Amazon.com to Outperform based on expectations the company will be number 1 U.S. apparel retailer by 2017, driven by accelerating purchasing growth. Growth is being driven by a much larger selection, ramping 1P brand relationships and superior fulfillment and technology. BlackLedge said Amazon's long-term investment philosophy in massive retail and technology markets is increasingly paying off and should continue to win as it attracts U.S. retail TAM as wall as International e-commerce leadership. Further, he expects Amazon.com's leadership to continue in the fast-growing public cloud market. BlackLedge raised his price target on Amazon shares to $565 from $435.